


Blissful Ignorance

by CharacteristicallyMinor



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chameleon Arch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharacteristicallyMinor/pseuds/CharacteristicallyMinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor John Smith and Professor Harry Yana met when they were working at the same university. The rest is history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blissful Ignorance

Doctor John Smith and Professor Harry Yana had began working at the university at the same time as each other. Since they were both new to the area, it made sense that they ended up as flatmates when they realized that they both needed someone to share the rent with. The flatmate plan worked out for the most part. John tended to abandon gadgets randomly in the kitchen and generally clutter up the flat, and Harry could be very touchy on days when his students had tried to degrade his authority, but they usually got along very well. 

In fact, they got along well enough that they started dating after a year and three months of living together as friends. Those fifteen months had been filled with large amounts of mutual pining, and all of their coworkers and friends were very relieved when they finally started actually dating each other.

They felt as though they were made for each other, in some way. They understood each other on some fundamental level, unlike anyone they had ever met before. It was as though they had known each other for all of their lives. 

They were married after a couple of blissful years of dating. Their wedding was wonderful, even though neither of them had families to attend. They didn't even notice the absence. They had all of their colleagues and friends from the university at the wedding, and that was everyone they needed.

They had their fights, as many couples do. John could be insensitive and oblivious at times. Harry had a temper. They could both be cruel when they were having a very big argument. Still, they always resolved their disputes. Sometimes, the couple could be incredibly lovey-dovey. Even years after they were married, strangers on the street still mistook them for newlyweds on their honeymoon.

After a few years, their friends began to comment on how young they both still looked. Neither of them thought much of it, although they sometimes joked that, "it's our love that keeps us young."

A few years after that, their youth was causing some actual questions. It was harder for them to ignore it, although they had no logical explanation for why they barely seemed to be aging. There did not appear to be anything medically unusual about them. They started to consider moving to somewhere that nobody knew them so that the questions about their ages would stop. They were ready for a change, anyways. John was restless by nature, and Harry wasn't much better.

They settled into their new lives with minimal difficulties. It took them a while to unpack, though; they did not particularly mind having the boxes around, and they had more interesting things to do with their lives. 

Finally, on a cold, rainy bank holiday, they got around to unpacking the last few boxes. Harry found some of his old notes on possible experiments, and John found some books that he hadn't remembered that he had owned. 

In the final box, they also found a set of two very similar watches. John and Harry could faintly remember having owned the watches for a long time, but they had never really paid attention to them. Now that they were looking at them, they thought that they might have been wedding gifts- perhaps from the history professor they were friends with, as pocket watches were rather old-fashioned.  
"There might be an inscription on the inside saying who they're from," Harry suggested.

"Ooh, good idea. I'll look at this one, and you check that one," John said. He picked up the watch closer to him, and cracked it open. Golden light spilled out, and his mind was filled with images of several different men. They were somehow all the same man, and they were a Time Lord. A powerful, morally ambiguous alien who, for some strange reason, reminded John of Harry. John saw the universe in that golden light, and he wasn't sure whether to be enthralled by it or to never want to have to see it again. The Master, the alien's name was. It suited him, in some indefinable way. 

As he looked into the golden light, John saw things that he never would have believed before. He saw the man with many faces execute many grand plans, usually fighting against another man with many faces, who filled John with nostalgia and recognition. He saw Harry and himself in those foreign faces.

John wasn't sure that he actually wanted to see any more. He closed the watch, and then he looked up at Harry. Harry was staring into the other watch, which was also glowing a golden color. John did not interrupt, although he was sorely tempted to. Harry closed the watch he was holding only a few seconds after John closed his. 

"Did you- did the watch- was your watch... strange?" John asked, unsure how to phrase the question.

"Yes, it definitely was. I saw things that I would have lived easier not seeing," Harry said.

"Mine was the same way. I don't think I liked what I saw," John said. "I think... I think that we should either talk about it now or agree to forget that we ever looked at these. I- I think that remembering these will change us. And not in a good way."

"Let's forget. I don't want to know any of the things that I learned," Harry said, sounding relieved that John had suggested forgetting.  
"Let's leave the watches here, where we won't easily find them again."

"Sounds good to me," John said.

After a week, the knowledge that they had gained felt increasingly unreal. After a month, they thought it might have simply been a dream. After a year, neither of them remembered the discovery.

They lived abnormally long lives, but they didn't live forever. They both died, as people are apt to do. Everyone gets just one life to live, or so the saying goes. Nobody gets to live forever.

Right?


End file.
